Talk To AC Transit About BRT Tonight

Residents can see AC Transit's plan for a futuristic bus line and comment on the proposal at a town hall meeting that begins at 6 pm tonight in the South Offices Conference Room next to .

AC Transit planner Jim Cunradi said the event is not a public hearing but rather a presentation about the Bus Rapid Transit  (BRT) project -- a sort of trolley on wheels designed to offer speedier service from downtown Berkeley through Oakland to the downtown San Leandro BART station.

But he said the town hall format will allow attendees to ask questions or make comments. Printed forms soliciting reaction will also be distributed.

The BRT has been on the drawing board for a decade. It was originally conceived as running on a dedicated, bus-only lane with elevated stops, like trolley stations, above street level.

The original vision saw this dedicated bus lane stretching from downtown Berkeley through Oakland on East 14th Street and continuing through San Leandro to the Bay Fair BART station.

But Berkeley eventually rejected the notion of a dedicated bus lane. The BRT will still go through that city but it will travel more like a regular bus, sharing the streets with cars.

And the San Leandro City Council decided to end the BRT at the downtown San Leandro BART station rather than Bay Fair.

In its current form, therefore, the BRT mainly affects residents and business on the north end of San Leandro.

The route comes into town as an elevated, dedicated right-of-way as far as Sunnyside Drive.

From there it travels like a regular bus down 14th Street to Davis Street, turning west to the BART Station.

Broadmoor resident Peggy Combs recently published an that asked one overarching question: why run the elevated line just a few blocks into San Leandro when this created parking and turning problems?

Her analysis provoked a .

They included project booster Leah Hall who called the BRT a "no-brainer" that would give the East Bay a high-speed bus option that has proven its worth as an efficient people-mover in Brazil.

Project detractors included Thomas Clarke who said the BRT might have made sense as a dedicated, high-speed bus line from Berkeley to Bay Fair. But "when Berkeley dropped out this project should have been scrapped," he wrote.

Changes to the plan are still possible, according to Cunradi. But it will be up to city officials to suggest any alterations.

"At this point, only the San Leandro Mayor and City Council can have any impact on AC Transit’s plans because the Council already 'approved' the current plan years ago," Combs wrote in her analysis.

For a flyer with additional details about the town hall, click below:

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca/groups/ceda/documents/marketingmaterial/oak033146.pdf

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